with people. When I came to Alfing Quad, I got to know everybody. I thought I was settled for good and I set down roots. Or, you might say, I dug in my fingernails and held on for dear life. But then we came to Geo Quad and I had to face all these new people. I might not have done it very well but I could do it because they were Ship people. People-type people. But they aren’t like us on the planets.
I really think I could have faced Earth. I think I could understand anybody who could take an asteroid roughly thirty miles by twenty by ten and turn it into a Ship. They split it into two halves, carved out forty or fifty percent of the rock in the two parts, leaving matching projections, and then put them back together again, and restuffed the interior with all the fittings needed to make a Ship. All in one year.
To me, these people were fantastic and wonderful, and it still hurts me to think that they had to cap it all by blowing themselves to pieces. But that was Earth. Not the Mudeaters.
On the second Sunday after we finished moving to Geo Quad, I was reading a book in my room when Daddy knocked on my door. I put the book aside when he came in.
“Did you have any plans for next weekend, Mia?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “Why?”
“I had an idea I thought you might like.”
“Oh?”
“I’ve just finished talking with the Supply Steward. We’re going to have to make a barter stop, so we’re laying by Grainau this weekend. The Council has given me the job of dealing with them. I thought you might enjoy coming along with us.”
He ought to have known better than that. I shook my head and said, “I don’t think I want to see the Mudeaters.”
“Don’t use that word,” Daddy said. “They may be primitive, but they’re still people. You might be surprised at what you could learn from them. The world doesn’t end with a quad. It doesn’t end with a Ship, either.”
My heart pounding, I said, “Thank you, but I don’t think I’m interested,” and picked up my book again.
“You might think about this,” Daddy said. “In twenty months you’re going to be alone on a planet with people like these, doing your best to live with them and stay alive. If you can’t stand to be near them now, what are you going to do then? I think you ought to be interested.”
I shook my head, but then I suddenly couldn’t pretend to be indifferent any longer. With tears in my eyes, I said, “I am interested. But I’m scared.”
“Is that all?”
“What do you mean, ‘Is that all?’ ”
Daddy said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I can see how the thought might frighten you. Most of the colony planets are pretty unpleasant places by any civilized standard. What I meant was, is that your only reason for not wanting to come along?”
“Yes,” I said. “But it’s not the planets that scare me. It’s the people.”
“Oh,” Daddy said. He sighed. “You know, I was afraid of something like this. One of the reasons I had for moving was that I thought you were too dependent on Alfing Quad. You were living in too small a world. The trouble is that you don’t know that there is anything real beyond the things you are familiar with at first hand. If I could take you down on Grainau and show you something new, and show you that it isn’t all that bad, I think you’d get over this fear of yours.”
My stomach lurched with fear. “You’re not going to make me go, are you?” I asked desperately.
“No. I won’t make you go. I won’t ever force you to do anything, Mia. I’ll tell you what, though,” he said, his manner changing abruptly. “If you come along, if you go down to Grainau with me this weekend, I promise I’ll unfreeze you. How about that?”
I had to smile, but I shook my head.
“Think about it,” Daddy said. “You may change your mind.”
When he went out, I had the feeling he was disappointed, and suddenly I felt depressed and even more unhappy. It was as though having my fingers dug in, and holding on as best I could to my security, suddenly I wasn’t to be allowed it anymore, and Daddy was prying my fingers loose one-by-one. That wouldn’t have